ENGLAND v HUNGARY:YESTERDAY SAW the return of Fabio Capello the tactician. The defence was secure, but there was also the eye for an opening. Six weeks after his team's galling elimination from the World Cup it was time for a new plan. The manager's English had improved, leaving his audience to wonder if renewed effort had been put into establishing himself in this foreign country.
He appreciates that the old autocratic tone has to be set aside for the time being. There was a trace of humour, although his squad might not relish the practical joke. The Italian proposed that, where possible, the men who failed so grievously in South Africa should start the friendly with Hungary at Wembley tomorrow. It is a sort of loyalty that the beneficiaries may not appreciate.
A section of the expected crowd of 60,000 will have stumped up to go to the World Cup finals in South Africa and now they are being invited by the manager to vent their wrath towards several of the culprits. The players will be cannon fodder. All the same, the months and years ahead have to be negotiated by Capello in the knowledge that he is no longer trusted, let alone revered.
It is instructive to see how abruptly reputations shift in football. An interview appeared in April 2009 at a moment when England had scored 16 times to win five World Cup qualifiers. In their spare time the side had travelled to beat Germany in a friendly. The manager was asked about the pressure of the job. “I can’t live without it!” he cried gleefully.
That version of Capello is no longer with us. His opposite number in November 2008 was Joachim Löw and the German’s team-building has proved to have the greater substance. There could be no quibbling about that after the 4-1 rout of England at the World Cup in June.
Capello now drags himself and his men out of the rubble of that result. A period of happy convalescence lies ahead at Wembley since Hungary stand 62nd in the global rankings, even if it will be a point of honour for fans to stay sardonic.
The England manager is no novice when it comes to failure. At the age of 64, he could not possibly lack experience of it and he was gone from Milan, for instance, before the close of the 1997-98 season in which the club finished 10th. The prospect of hostility was greeted with near-merriness, as if it was an old acquaintance he had not seen for a while.
“They have to boo me like the players,” he said of the Wembley spectators. Capello knows how to regroup and appeared fresh yesterday, as well as more willing to show candour. Like a politician, Capello is wily enough to cast himself as an agent of change while sceptics are growling that he is actually the problem.
He was vague about his notions for reinforcing the mentality of his men. It has occurred to him that people are not satisfied with his conclusion that the squad were too tired from the domestic exertions to have any impact at the World Cup. Apart from anything else, such reasoning suggests that English footballers will collapse in every June and July until the end of time.
Capello hinted at further exploration of whatever means sports science can devise to revive jaded athletes, but he is well aware that the simplest means of creating a deep reservoir of energy would be to select younger footballers. A man who saw no cause to take, say, Theo Walcott or Adam Johnson to the World Cup has to take on idealistic overtones, even if nobody is ever going to confuse him with Arsene Wenger.
As it happens, he will still be keenly interested in the work of the Arsenal manager who has hitherto been blamed for depending on overseas talent. Were it not for Wenger, Capello’s talk of youth development in an England context would be preposterous. It was essential for him to introduce budding stars and he ought to be relieved that he could call on Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere.
The fear for Capello will be that he simply does not have enough youngsters of such potential. In addition, it would not be simple to stand by Gibbs and Wilshere if, as is perfectly feasible, they struggled to get much time on the field at their club. Also, Gibbs is a left-back, a spot where England are well served by Ashley Cole.
Capello’s presentational skills were deft yesterday, but the raw facts are unaltered. Should England qualify for Euro 2012 as anticipated, it will still take all his acumen to ensure that the side do not flounder once more.
